Egypt's Court Ordered Retrial for 149 Accused of Police Killings in Kerdasa

Egypt's Court Ordered Retrial for 149 Accused of Police Killings in Kerdasa
Wed Feb 3, 2016 14:29:14

Egypt's highest appeals court has overturned the death sentences and has ordered the retrial of 149 defendants previously convicted of killing policemen in Kerdasa in 2013.

In February 2015, a separate criminal court sentenced 183 supporters of the now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group to death over their role in the killing of 11 policemen in an assault on a police station in the town of Kerdasa, on the outskirts of Cairo.

The incident took place in August 2013 during the unrest that followed the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Thirty-four of the defendants were sentenced in absentia.

The Court of Cassation, the country's highest judicial authority, accepted appeals by defendants on Wednesday, ordering a retrial of 149.

The new trial will take place before a criminal court and defendants will have the opportunity to appeal again before the cassation court.

Since Morsi's ouster, hundreds of Brotherhood supporters have been sentenced to death in swift mass trials condemned by the United Nations as "unprecedented in recent history.”

Many of those convicted have won retrials; Ahram reported.

M/M

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